Separate Lives
by Loreylli
Summary: Up until their 6th year at Hogwarts Lily and James hated each other. But when James wakes up to an unusual scene on the school train things might actually look up.... towards the end anyway.


I don't own any of the characters.. yada yada yada.. except for the original ones of my own creation and imagination. yada yada yada .. If I did I'd be a very rich person.  
  
~*~Chapter One~*~  
~*The Prank*~  
  
Sixteen year old James Potter rolled over in his bed on the morning of September first and looked at the clock. It was 5:57 and he could just barely see the red-orange line beginning along the horizon. He still had a few hours before his mom would come and wake him and his best friend Sirius Black up so he decided to try and go back to bed. He laid there for about half an hour before deciding that it was hopeless and he got up and got dressed. He then went around his room gathering the rest of his stuff for his return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This would be he and Sirius's sixth year at the famous wizarding school and he couldn't wait to get back to the long corridors and secret passages. When he finished checking every corner of his room he went downstairs to breakfast.  
  
He could tell that their cook, Mazzy, was already making breakfast. By the smells of it she was making something delicious. He walked into the cavernous kitchen and sat down at the bar. He was right. She was making pancakes, waffles, eggs, bacon, toast, and a fresh pitcher of pumpkin juice.  
  
"What's with all the food?" he asked.  
  
"Well since its your and young Master Sirius's last day home I figured I'd make something special."  
  
"You certainly did that," he smiled. "I'll go wake him up. Thanks Mazzy."  
  
"You're very welcome. Hurry up now. It'll be done soon."  
  
He walked out of the kitchen and back up the stairs. While doing this he reflected on the day almost three weeks ago, when Sirius had come to live with him.  
  
Sirius hated his family and how they thought they were better than everyone else because they were purebloods. As soon as he turned sixteen he ran away and went to the only real home he had ever really known. The Potter's loved Sirius and took him in with out question. He had been given an open invitation to stay there as long as he needed to. Sirius had never been more grateful to anyone before.  
  
James all of a sudden realized he was at Sirius door. He knocked and didn't hear anything. He knocked again and still nothing. Finally he decided to go in, and considering the usual condition of Sirius's room, that was a bold move. He reached out, turned the doorknob, and pushed the door open. As he thought it would be it was a mess. It didn't even look like he had started packing.  
  
"Padfoot," he shouted. "Padfoot Get your lazy a-"  
  
"James Alex Potter," his mother said from behind, "I would suggest, for your sake, that you do not finish that sentence."  
  
"Sorry mum," he said apologetically, "didn't know you were there."  
  
"Obviously, I hope you're not thick enough to say something like that if you did. Now if you can wake Sirius up without cursing you may do so," after she was finished James heard her go down stairs, a little louder than was necessary.  
  
He turned around to face Sirius, who was trying to catch his breath because he was laughing so hard.  
  
"That was. real slick. Prongs," Sirius said through fits of laughter. "Real slick," whether he was going to say anything else or not, James didn't know because at that moment he became so over whelmed with laughter he fell off the bed, which just made him laugh harder.  
  
"You have serious issues Padfoot, and no pun intended."  
  
"Shut up 'James Alex Potter'," but imitating James mothers voice only made him laugh harder and he disappeared again behind the bed in another fit of laughter.  
  
"Have you even started packing?"  
  
"No. I figured if I ask nicely your mom will do it with her wand."  
  
"I'll do no such thing," James's mom said as she came back into the room. "Now go downstairs and eat breakfast."  
  
This was James' turn to start laughing.  
  
"Well that worked well now didn't it?"  
  
Sirius picked up a pillow from the bed and lobbed it at James. James was just about to throw it back when-  
  
"EAT. NOW..." came from the stairs.  
  
James and Sirius look at each other and decided they should probably go eat breakfast. They didn't want Mrs. Potter to be any more irritable then she usually was on September first.  
  
"So have you thought about the back to school prank," Sirius whispered to James while they were eating breakfast.  
  
"Yea," James turned around to make sure his mother wasn't standing there, "I think I have it but I'll need to get to our library to get the spells."  
  
"What are we doing this year?"  
  
"Changing the colors of the flames on the candles in the Great Hall."  
  
"You don't think that's kind of. I don't know. elementary?"  
  
"I'm not done yet," he snapped. "After we change them we can rearrange them to say stuff."  
  
"Now we're talking," Sirius grinned and so did James. Just then Mrs. Potter walked in and saw the identical evil grins on their faces.  
  
"I don't know what you two are planning but if it involves an owl home in the next week then you're both getting howlers," she turned and walked out rather more quickly than usual.  
  
"You know what this means, don't you Padfoot?"  
  
"We're going to need earplugs?" he questioned.  
  
"Exactly."  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
James and Sirius ate more food then it was probably humanly possible to do. They had just decided it was to the point they would never be able to moves again when James' mom told them to go hurry up and finish packing Sirius's stuff. They did it fairly quickly and stuffed all the belongings in the car. Its was quite a hilarious site to see them running up and down the stairs because they kept running into each other and dropping whatever they were carrying.  
  
There was a particularly funny incident when Sirius ran into James and he dropped all his Quidditch stuff and his snitch started to fly all over the house. They finally chased it into a broom closet and trapped it. By this point James was getting screamed at by his mother. Sirius found this so hilarious that he had to make up and excuse go get out of the room so he didn't have another laughing fit.  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
When they were sure they had everything and it was loaded in the car. James, Sirius, and Mrs. Potter headed to the train station. They got there about 10:30 and in plenty of time to get the best seats on the train, the compartment right next to the food car.  
  
They were also in the most popular section of the train, and being very popular themselves, several of there friends visited then over the next few hours. Frank Longbottom brought some Fillibusters no-heat wet start fireworks, which they gleefully through some at Severus Snape as he passed the corridor. Lucius Malfoy, a prefect from Slytherin, came by to tell James there was a prefects meeting at noon in the front of the train. They saw Lily Evans, James' crush walk by with a group of her friends. She shot James a look of disgust on their return trip through. They were also joined by the other two Marauders:  
  
Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.  
  
By the time James got done telling Remus and Peter the back to school prank the train had already begun its long journey to Hogwarts. After practicing the spells for the prank and they were sure they had them all right, eating a ridiculous amount of candy from the food car, and got bored picking on the first years, they all decided to take a nap.  
  
When James woke up two hours later he wasn't quite sure what woke him up. But when he put on his glasses he saw something that he had never in a million years expected to see.  
  
________________________________________________________________________ A/N: This is my first fanfic so be kind but also be honest. Please review. I want to know what you think so I can know what direction to send the story in. Thanx Everyone! Loreylli 


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